Legacy of Death Part VII: Little Granny knows Hades
Jin Abackis
Explorer
Simorai searches the Manual of Planes for the term (Arcana -30). He also tries to remember from his scholarly studies in the City of Brass if the term or portions thereof (i.e., Kosmos or Kamaros) may be a name (of a god or plane?) or have any significance (possibly in another language) (history (crit) – 41).
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
As the spellsword slowly looks through the book, time truly crawls. You think Buckthorns starts to get grey hair. Nar has clearly not recovered.
The higher elf: "you know, I think they have us right where they want us. In between the dining room and kitchen. I am sure they will be ready for us soon. Any day now."
universe chamber?
It feels colder.
The higher elf: "you know, I think they have us right where they want us. In between the dining room and kitchen. I am sure they will be ready for us soon. Any day now."
universe chamber?
It feels colder.
Jin Abackis
Explorer
Some sound tactical advice Warlord, we should not get bogged down in a fixed position. I think the term may be referring to the Star Room. I propose we help Nar and move to that room. It may also get him out of the trance he is in currently.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
The Witching Hour Nears its End, but its not over
The words slowly drip out.
You think its that? With him and that tome, could be anything. And I was just saying, these kinds of witches eating people. It was a joke.
He shows no sign of humor. But, less then a second later, he shows more expression on his then he has in decades.
A shadow comes out of the gloom.
Natasha walks right past all of you. To the kitchen doors.
"We sometimes eat people.".
She finishes her "surprise round" and walks right through them.
The words slowly drip out.
You think its that? With him and that tome, could be anything. And I was just saying, these kinds of witches eating people. It was a joke.
He shows no sign of humor. But, less then a second later, he shows more expression on his then he has in decades.
A shadow comes out of the gloom.
Natasha walks right past all of you. To the kitchen doors.
"We sometimes eat people.".
She finishes her "surprise round" and walks right through them.
dyermaker001
Explorer
Nar follows her through the kitchen doors "Can I ask you a question?"
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
(truly 
)
You get that funny feeling as you cross the threshold and you walk in. You are hit by smell of cooking meat, the warmth of the stoves (coming from another part of the area) and the sight of a large blue skinned female. Two others can be seen carrying out various chores. She gives you a glance, but is busy doing something.
No (other) witches or hags are about that you can see.
The mouse, about to take his leave, is so amazed by this turn of events he lingers to see the outcome. The warlord, likewise.
)You get that funny feeling as you cross the threshold and you walk in. You are hit by smell of cooking meat, the warmth of the stoves (coming from another part of the area) and the sight of a large blue skinned female. Two others can be seen carrying out various chores. She gives you a glance, but is busy doing something.
No (other) witches or hags are about that you can see.
The mouse, about to take his leave, is so amazed by this turn of events he lingers to see the outcome. The warlord, likewise.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
As Nar remains on the other side (OoC: we exchanged emails, who knows what could have happened). The mouse pulls himself together.
hic, hic, hic
shakes head. Actually pulls himself together.
*I will be going now. Just remember what I said.*
He starts leaving and then turns back.
*And be careful.*
He leaves in a flash.
The warlord, looks at the mouse, looks at you, looks back....
And shows speed and athleticism you have not seen from him as he follows Ivan.
Buckthorn and Simoria remain in the dining room alcove. Alone.
And I am going to stop posting until we play...I know, I know, it had been going so well...see you Sunday
hic, hic, hic
shakes head. Actually pulls himself together.
*I will be going now. Just remember what I said.*
He starts leaving and then turns back.
*And be careful.*
He leaves in a flash.
The warlord, looks at the mouse, looks at you, looks back....
And shows speed and athleticism you have not seen from him as he follows Ivan.
Buckthorn and Simoria remain in the dining room alcove. Alone.
And I am going to stop posting until we play...I know, I know, it had been going so well...see you Sunday
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Buckthorn and Simoria step into the kitchen. The hags look at them…and they start talking about meat and the prison. Delivering meat to the prison. The ion stone floating around Nar’s head actually allows them to convince the hags that they should deliver meat to the prison. (Of course the hags are also thinking that the three odd-balls will end up in the prison in the process, but oh well).
Now I need to bake a pie
They follow instructions and find themselves at the edge of the cells, various beings sealed off by magical fields of force. Meat in hand, Sim strides right into the middle of the cell block, calling for the jailer. The Type V Demon (Marilith), a breed with which the party has now become all too familiar, slithers out. And is very confused at the site of the spellsword.
When Sim walked forward, he disrupted a trap that should have sent him into a cell, and his stuff into a secret closet. Instead, he walked forward unaffected and the trap was revealed to Nar and Buckthorn. (the DM rolled a 1, the first of many). They follow.
The demon attacks. Forge is located in one cell. In others are a hell knight, a loquacious devil, some more bird people, and a sleepy piscodeamon. Speaking of sleeping, Forge won’t wake up, and doesn’t have his stuff.
And there is another prisoner, first spied by Buckhorn, a shadowy figure who seems vaguely familiar.
The demon runs out of patience and attacks. As the fight begins, the shadowy figure phase walks through his cell and some others and heads to where the captured equipment may be. He eventually finds it. Nar just about walks into him. With a hurl, Forges axe is delivered.
Nar was actually responsible for most of the fire
Sim cast the demon into a cell with the hellknight, bringing another ally into the fight. Forge wakes up, and the fight is truly on.
The devil begs for freedom. Nar starts to negotiate. A voice calls out warning the “professor” that this is not the best course of action. Everyone knows that Lucian has been found.
Even as they seem to have the Marilith on the ropes, Natasha arrives! She unleashes her dreamwitch powers….the adventurers are trapped in their own nightmares, trapped in cells, Buckthorn is sent away entirely, twice, but they hold on! Natasha is driving back, and in fact lucky to escape.
With some small delay, the now five adventurers decide to return to their “guest chambers” for some sleep. They actually remember how to get there, and do so expeditiously. And there is a hammock of black silk, newly added for the new guest. (Actually a guest for months, but no custom hammock!).
They made a good choice, as Elena, carrying Ivan and leading an uncharacteristically sheepish Dayereth finds them and notes that Little Granny (this would be Baba Yaga) has returned and is eager to meet them! If they had been anywhere else, that meeting might have happened sooner rather than later. But Elena is always courteous, and knows Little Granny is the same, and lets them complete their rest.
The next “day” Elena gives them a tour on their way to meet Baba Yaga. They see the bestiary with its beholder, faint bloody vampire mist, night hag (actually the only one they managed to see, of many in the Hut), su monsters, and flame breathing hydra. They circle an indoor lake, bypassing the nasty green hags, and traverse a fungus garden, but do not partake of its pool and the strange things it might do. They pass through the grand museum with its JS-1 tank and steam powered dwarven war cannon. Returning to little peasant chamber at the entrance to hut, they again pass through the entry hall with its prismatic spray emitting statues and tapestries (now being repaired by various bird-men) and the audience hall with its throne, and recently disturbed trapper. For the first time, they all enter the art gallery, though the medusa “artist” and wraith guardians remain unseen. The tour ends with the grand throne room. (They will never see the alchemical laboratory, or Natasha’s laboratory, or the conjuring hall, or the little room from which Baba Yaga can control the hut).
Baba Yaga greets them. Natasha, who is there, is sent away with Elena. The many doors to the vast chamber are locked at the ancient witches whim.
The pain begins.
The immortal crone starts by turning Sim into a frog and Forge into a pig! She has fey trap that foils Lucian, Dayereth, and Simoria’s teleportation. She is burned by Nar’s fire, but empowered at the same time. Her curses retaliate against those that hit her and can make one ally attack another. And she has a real, poisonous, taste for Buckthorn. Yummy Buckthorn.
She calls forth terrible tentacles that, with her fey trap, ensnare most the party. Those that aren’t are swept into it by her wicked broom. They seem to have little hope.
Then Nar dispels the black tentacles. Forge and the others rip into her, leaving her dazed, prone and bloodied.
She shakes off the conditions and calmly stands up. But she is impressed. She notes that while she could still unleash her cone of cold and summon a shator “shaggy” demondand, she is willing to talk. The party is happy to parley. And having eaten several depraved shadow coast elves over the last few days, the mighty hag can stop gnawing on the Halfling.
none of these had the chance to participate
They confirm their war with the Githayanki. She moves them on. They discuss the old demi-lich desire to make himself as powerful as her. She is somewhat interested, and notes the link to Ruinblade. Then the book comes up. Here she shows more interest.
Nar is clearly frazzled by all the events of recent days. (Who wouldn’t be?). Or perhaps it’s a last attempt at evasion. (and perhaps the DM was watching the clock and rushed things a bit) But the twisted story of the book is sort of put back together. Sort of.
It should have gone something like: A deep and self-aware compendium of the darkest shadow and necrotic lore and all its cosmic implications, the tome was found in the Tomb of Horrors by Simon Amber, of the infamous family, where he, and apparently the great lich and many others, added their own notes. Amber speculated on its origins, but was never sure. At some point he freed himself of the book and placed in the restricted stacks of Watercross central library—an incident that would latter be investigated in a round about way by the party.
A professor who would latter call himself Kalarel got ahold of it and attempted to reopen a rift to the darkest most Orcus influenced part of the Aether—a truly horrible shadowfell. A band of adventurers stopped him, but would all die. Thaedrus before even finding Kalarel, Donne in the fight with Kalarel, Bart later decapitated by the Githynaki in their search for the book, Samm when he would return again to the rift, Rafa—a late joiner to the group that would be killed by a Vecna cultist called Paldemar. And then there is Lucian. Kalarel returned in undead form to open that rift again, with help of a Marilith demon (that’s right). Not only Samm but also Lucian and Forge would die. Samm’s soul made the journey permanent, the other two were brought back.
Now Lucian is a not entirely alive shadow creature. A means of escaping Gamma World or something beyond his control, the shadow dabbler made a permanent transformation and stumbled to the Hut (one of the few “magical” things that could reach that world) through deep and otherwise featureless shadow Aether. And met Natasha, and Elena and even Baba Yaga. And his discretion may have faded at points.
Moil, just the sort of place a shadow tome will take you
The tome was taken by Bart, then, just in time, given to Nar. A fellow Melkar house member (where the party would end up basing themselves for a while) Nar would complete the book, er, Bart’s mission and return to the Tomb with the rest of the party, using the notes of Simon Amber. Later it would return to the rift, as noted, and help lead them to the lost city of Moil with its Shadow Tomb, and on to Gamma World, where it lost pages where found integrated into a strange device made by the demi-lich. Eventually they would return again to the first tomb of horrors, and finds its last pages together with Ruinblade after defeating the Archwraith that was Acererak’s architect, and who deemed them worth with his last undead breath. (In between, a Watercross student would use a copy of the Demonicon to summon Graz’zt, also seeking the tome).
Fully empowered, the book (with Nar) initiated a ritual to go to a “central place” but ran into a “portal it could not open”. Fortunately (or the hag-incarnates plan?) they run into the Hut, and avoid a flying ship full of Githyanki.
Now the party wants to go to Sigil. It was Sim’s idea. Oh, and somewhere in Hades (where or what exactly?) And while he can barely remember it, Nar has been compelled by the book to “seek the through all those doors, at the heart. A single grand chamber, strange adamantine spinderals all connected to...
He involuntarily gasps ‘Kosmoskamaros’.”
…………………………………………………………….
Or at least that is what Baba Yaga is able to put together from the various dribs and drabs given to her first by Lucian then by the group as a whole. She is sharp that way. And with her own mission accomplished, she agrees the party can go.
After they pay a toll. Various usused enchanted items are surrendered. But the kicker is the tapestry with the Shadar Kai still embedded in it. Who knows what its fate will be in the hands of Baba Yaga.
The Lava Dragon steps aside, the portal is summoned, and they step through.
Now I need to bake a pie
They follow instructions and find themselves at the edge of the cells, various beings sealed off by magical fields of force. Meat in hand, Sim strides right into the middle of the cell block, calling for the jailer. The Type V Demon (Marilith), a breed with which the party has now become all too familiar, slithers out. And is very confused at the site of the spellsword.
When Sim walked forward, he disrupted a trap that should have sent him into a cell, and his stuff into a secret closet. Instead, he walked forward unaffected and the trap was revealed to Nar and Buckthorn. (the DM rolled a 1, the first of many). They follow.
The demon attacks. Forge is located in one cell. In others are a hell knight, a loquacious devil, some more bird people, and a sleepy piscodeamon. Speaking of sleeping, Forge won’t wake up, and doesn’t have his stuff.
And there is another prisoner, first spied by Buckhorn, a shadowy figure who seems vaguely familiar.
The demon runs out of patience and attacks. As the fight begins, the shadowy figure phase walks through his cell and some others and heads to where the captured equipment may be. He eventually finds it. Nar just about walks into him. With a hurl, Forges axe is delivered.
Nar was actually responsible for most of the fire
Sim cast the demon into a cell with the hellknight, bringing another ally into the fight. Forge wakes up, and the fight is truly on.
The devil begs for freedom. Nar starts to negotiate. A voice calls out warning the “professor” that this is not the best course of action. Everyone knows that Lucian has been found.
Even as they seem to have the Marilith on the ropes, Natasha arrives! She unleashes her dreamwitch powers….the adventurers are trapped in their own nightmares, trapped in cells, Buckthorn is sent away entirely, twice, but they hold on! Natasha is driving back, and in fact lucky to escape.
With some small delay, the now five adventurers decide to return to their “guest chambers” for some sleep. They actually remember how to get there, and do so expeditiously. And there is a hammock of black silk, newly added for the new guest. (Actually a guest for months, but no custom hammock!).
They made a good choice, as Elena, carrying Ivan and leading an uncharacteristically sheepish Dayereth finds them and notes that Little Granny (this would be Baba Yaga) has returned and is eager to meet them! If they had been anywhere else, that meeting might have happened sooner rather than later. But Elena is always courteous, and knows Little Granny is the same, and lets them complete their rest.
The next “day” Elena gives them a tour on their way to meet Baba Yaga. They see the bestiary with its beholder, faint bloody vampire mist, night hag (actually the only one they managed to see, of many in the Hut), su monsters, and flame breathing hydra. They circle an indoor lake, bypassing the nasty green hags, and traverse a fungus garden, but do not partake of its pool and the strange things it might do. They pass through the grand museum with its JS-1 tank and steam powered dwarven war cannon. Returning to little peasant chamber at the entrance to hut, they again pass through the entry hall with its prismatic spray emitting statues and tapestries (now being repaired by various bird-men) and the audience hall with its throne, and recently disturbed trapper. For the first time, they all enter the art gallery, though the medusa “artist” and wraith guardians remain unseen. The tour ends with the grand throne room. (They will never see the alchemical laboratory, or Natasha’s laboratory, or the conjuring hall, or the little room from which Baba Yaga can control the hut).
Baba Yaga greets them. Natasha, who is there, is sent away with Elena. The many doors to the vast chamber are locked at the ancient witches whim.
The pain begins.
The immortal crone starts by turning Sim into a frog and Forge into a pig! She has fey trap that foils Lucian, Dayereth, and Simoria’s teleportation. She is burned by Nar’s fire, but empowered at the same time. Her curses retaliate against those that hit her and can make one ally attack another. And she has a real, poisonous, taste for Buckthorn. Yummy Buckthorn.
She calls forth terrible tentacles that, with her fey trap, ensnare most the party. Those that aren’t are swept into it by her wicked broom. They seem to have little hope.
Then Nar dispels the black tentacles. Forge and the others rip into her, leaving her dazed, prone and bloodied.
She shakes off the conditions and calmly stands up. But she is impressed. She notes that while she could still unleash her cone of cold and summon a shator “shaggy” demondand, she is willing to talk. The party is happy to parley. And having eaten several depraved shadow coast elves over the last few days, the mighty hag can stop gnawing on the Halfling.
none of these had the chance to participate
They confirm their war with the Githayanki. She moves them on. They discuss the old demi-lich desire to make himself as powerful as her. She is somewhat interested, and notes the link to Ruinblade. Then the book comes up. Here she shows more interest.
Nar is clearly frazzled by all the events of recent days. (Who wouldn’t be?). Or perhaps it’s a last attempt at evasion. (and perhaps the DM was watching the clock and rushed things a bit) But the twisted story of the book is sort of put back together. Sort of.
It should have gone something like: A deep and self-aware compendium of the darkest shadow and necrotic lore and all its cosmic implications, the tome was found in the Tomb of Horrors by Simon Amber, of the infamous family, where he, and apparently the great lich and many others, added their own notes. Amber speculated on its origins, but was never sure. At some point he freed himself of the book and placed in the restricted stacks of Watercross central library—an incident that would latter be investigated in a round about way by the party.
A professor who would latter call himself Kalarel got ahold of it and attempted to reopen a rift to the darkest most Orcus influenced part of the Aether—a truly horrible shadowfell. A band of adventurers stopped him, but would all die. Thaedrus before even finding Kalarel, Donne in the fight with Kalarel, Bart later decapitated by the Githynaki in their search for the book, Samm when he would return again to the rift, Rafa—a late joiner to the group that would be killed by a Vecna cultist called Paldemar. And then there is Lucian. Kalarel returned in undead form to open that rift again, with help of a Marilith demon (that’s right). Not only Samm but also Lucian and Forge would die. Samm’s soul made the journey permanent, the other two were brought back.
Now Lucian is a not entirely alive shadow creature. A means of escaping Gamma World or something beyond his control, the shadow dabbler made a permanent transformation and stumbled to the Hut (one of the few “magical” things that could reach that world) through deep and otherwise featureless shadow Aether. And met Natasha, and Elena and even Baba Yaga. And his discretion may have faded at points.
Moil, just the sort of place a shadow tome will take you
The tome was taken by Bart, then, just in time, given to Nar. A fellow Melkar house member (where the party would end up basing themselves for a while) Nar would complete the book, er, Bart’s mission and return to the Tomb with the rest of the party, using the notes of Simon Amber. Later it would return to the rift, as noted, and help lead them to the lost city of Moil with its Shadow Tomb, and on to Gamma World, where it lost pages where found integrated into a strange device made by the demi-lich. Eventually they would return again to the first tomb of horrors, and finds its last pages together with Ruinblade after defeating the Archwraith that was Acererak’s architect, and who deemed them worth with his last undead breath. (In between, a Watercross student would use a copy of the Demonicon to summon Graz’zt, also seeking the tome).
Fully empowered, the book (with Nar) initiated a ritual to go to a “central place” but ran into a “portal it could not open”. Fortunately (or the hag-incarnates plan?) they run into the Hut, and avoid a flying ship full of Githyanki.
Now the party wants to go to Sigil. It was Sim’s idea. Oh, and somewhere in Hades (where or what exactly?) And while he can barely remember it, Nar has been compelled by the book to “seek the through all those doors, at the heart. A single grand chamber, strange adamantine spinderals all connected to...
He involuntarily gasps ‘Kosmoskamaros’.”
…………………………………………………………….
Or at least that is what Baba Yaga is able to put together from the various dribs and drabs given to her first by Lucian then by the group as a whole. She is sharp that way. And with her own mission accomplished, she agrees the party can go.
After they pay a toll. Various usused enchanted items are surrendered. But the kicker is the tapestry with the Shadar Kai still embedded in it. Who knows what its fate will be in the hands of Baba Yaga.
The Lava Dragon steps aside, the portal is summoned, and they step through.
